


Feral

by corsakitsune (camakitsune)



Series: The Servants of the Gods [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Immortals, Killing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 08:50:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13498638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camakitsune/pseuds/corsakitsune
Summary: Sarhahn is a kisri - a being which is neither god nor mortal, whose lot in immortal life is to carry out blessings or punishments in gods' names. One particular mission leads him to an encounter with a god who plants a dangerous idea in his head.





	Feral

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of backstory/motivation for my oc Sarhahn. His kind are generally seen as angels or demons by humans.

The wind dug its claws into any and all skin it could touch. Sarhahn's eyes stung with the icy air. His holy javelin burned cold in his hand. None of this was enough to stop him. He was on a mission to punish, and the quarry he chased was a repeat offender.

The fool was sensible enough to know that the old hide-and-repent trick wouldn't work. Not that he had the opportunity to do so anymore. Sarhahn had taken his tongue on his god’s request years ago. But he was still a fool for thinking he could evade punishment in the forest. Homes and storehouses ebbed, opening the landscape to the fields separating the forest and the outer villages, and with it, opening Sarhahn's striking range.

He raised his arm, the limb protected by the god he served from the frostbite shooting from his hand. His javelin darted forth, but was thwarted from landing on its mark. The natural wind, neither pushed nor impeded by any god's will, was unpredictably capricious: today a foe, tomorrow a friend. Sarhahn was too doggedly fixated on his task to give his frustration any notice. He knew he would fulfill his task. He simply had to do it. The blasphemer would have had a better chance at escape out here in the plains, running and waiting for Sarhahn to exhaust himself, even if that would take an inconceivable amount of time compared to human endurance. Between the misdirection of his javelin and the drag of his fully-fanned peacock's tail, Sarhahn was at a marked disadvantage in open spaces like this.

Sarhahn crossed the javelin's landing spot and retrieved it along the way. The minor detour required to collect his weapon was yet another slow-down. The blasphemer was seconds away from the hard line separating grass from trees. Sarhahn launched his javelin once more, and it made contact this time, felling the human as it embedded into the back of his thigh and wrenched a shout from him.

The kisri's pace slowed to a calm walk. Pride swelled in his chest at the sight of his quarry continuing to crawl into the trees, pathetic sounds of suffering issuing from him along the way. The ideal state for a human to be. His prey crossed the tree line. The roosting birds sensed with a knowledge as deep as instinct that some abnormal intrusion had happened; they abandoned their branches in a black fog that rose above the forest against the gray of the winter sky.

Beyond the no-man's land of grass expanse, inside the forest, the wind whittled to nothing after beating uselessly against the trunks of the outermost trees, and grass abandoned its attempts to root under the canopy. Sarhahn caught up with the blasphemer here, easily following the writhing, bleeding, lamenting mass of church-dressed limbs. He retrieved his weapon, tearing both flesh and cries from the man. Beneath him, the human shook his head, eyes as wild as the woods, before the head of the spear gored his throat.

The wind moved, and the trees sang gently with its dance. The birds that had abandoned their roosts were returning. Their voices were silent - the hundreds of wingbeats were the only evidence of their return. Sarhahn's tail rested, now unseen by human eyes. He withdrew his javelin one last time and swung it to expel the excess blood from it. The wind could carry its scent through the trees to the bears or wolves or forest cats. His gift to the wood.

A simple offering, yet a necessary one. This was no mere unsettled patch of land. This forest was itself a shrine to the untamed, a monument against humanity. This was the home of one of the feral gods: those immortals who rejected worship by man, who were exalted merely by the breaths of plants and the heartbeats of beasts.

And Sarhahn had just broken house rules. In this forest, both man and god were forbidden from killing. Murder was a privilege allowed only to the predators and parasites and diseases who lived here.

And judging by the tired groans of one hundred trees weighed down by something coiling and slithering among all of them at once, this incident wouldn't be overlooked just because his prey was also an intruder.

Sarhahn looked up. He saw the belly of a snake, yellow-white bands wider than he was tall, passing slowly in the trees above: vanishing here, hanging off branches there.

"You killed in my forest," the snake-god told him, communicating with no sound, but with a voice that spoke in his bones.

"I killed a human invading your forest," he corrected softly.

"Outsiders are forbidden from killing in my forest, and you killed in my forest," the snake-god insisted.

"It was necessary."

"Are you deaf?" The flock of birds fluttered. Sarhahn set his jaw tight upon sensing the god's ire.

"I apologize for my intrusion," he said as sincerely as he could muster. "I am acting under the authority of the god Vatt of Rain and River to punish blasphemy against her name."

The feral god laughed. He shivered. "You've designated a superior and wish to shift the blame for your actions onto her," she concluded. "How very human of you, broken one."

Sarhahn hissed in his throat. "You insult me."

"At least we are even in that respect," the god answered him. "Have you any clue what kind of position you've forced me into? Every god worshiped by man from the skies to the seas will be at my throat if I kill one of their precious tools." Sarhahn swallowed. If she decided to do just that, he would have no way to defend himself. His javelin, though endowed with Vatt's power by their contract, carried as much holy energy next to the snake god as there was acid in an ant's jaws.

"Yet,” she continued, “if word slipped that I let you go untouched after violating my edict, fools from every corner of the continent will think this is a safe haven for them to poach from me and shed each other’s blood for the sake of their petty arguments."

"Feral god," Sarhahn began, wishing to appeal to the nameless immortal. "I have broken the law of your domain. Had I not done so, Vatt may have marked you a guardian of her enemies. I acted in a manner that benefits you as well."

"Vatt," the snake repeated. "Humans pray poison into the ear of Vatt and every other god who has chosen to feed on their worship. Do _not_ fool yourself into believing you have protected me from their deceptions.”

Sarhahn was growing tired of her admonishment. She could punish him with pain or curse and send him on his way, anything so that he could leave this forest as soon as possible. "What will you do then?" he asked.

Her consideration hummed in the back of his head. "Since it would be imprudent for me to kill you, and I cannot let you leave as you are, I will play the game of your gods. Allow me to speak a poison into your ear as well, broken one."

Sarhahn's body went numb. He felt nothing, and then he felt weight. The forest rose around him until he crashed with the earth. Had he the ability to speak, he would demand what the feral god was doing.

"Settle down. I'm only ensuring that you don't run away." Her voice was soothing despite her previous irritation with him. "I know of you, Sarhahn, broken one who contracts with gods to punish humans. I know of your pride, and I know of your envy of the gods."

He gasped as she released him only enough to speak. "So do you intend to have me lay here ridicule me?" he asked after he became again accustomed to controlling his own mouth.

She laughed again. "You've done that yourself, allowing yourself to become a dog addicted to your master's power."

"I have no master."

"You have many masters. Have you ever wondered where the broken ones come from? Why you are cursed, and by whom?"

"Feral god, this is blasphemous to speak about." Could gods blaspheme? Could kisri be punished for being exposed to it? Perhaps she had sentenced him to death by merely asking questions that humans and kisri were forbidden to attempt to answer.

"According to whom? _Your_ gods? I wonder why they all have such a vested interest in keeping your nature hidden from you." A knowing humor filled her voice. "Listen, broken one. Every one of your kind carries a god's curse. If you were to kill the one who cursed you, it would break the curse that prevents you from becoming a god as well."

The snake-god fully released him. Weight receded to reveal sensation: cold air, moist earth, jagged roots. Sarhahn pushed his upper body away from the ground. He returned his sight to the belly of the snake still sliding across the spaces between trees. "What would you have me do with this knowledge, feral god? I am every bit as forbidden from knowing this as humans are," he told her bitterly, deeply resenting the common taboo with humans.

"Let it weigh on your mind until an answer crystallizes," she answered. "Now. Leave my domain."

Sarhahn stood to his feet, gave his tail a heavy flick, collected his javelin. The information she told him wasn’t actionable in the furthest stretches of his imagination, yet he sensed that it was more than enough to get him killed if any of the worshiped gods found out that he knew it. He exited the forest without another word as ordered, carrying the feeling of a target painted on his back.


End file.
